Was away, now I'm back. There's a thread in the lounge about it; don't really want to get into it here. Suffice to say, for the last 7 months or so, training has had to take a back seat. Waaaay back. As of Monday next week though everything should be back the way it was, so I will be training hard and should have enough time to maintain a presence on the forum again. We shall see.

Now to business.

The Primary Goal

A ripped 200lbs by the end of the year. A very tall order indeed. Is going to mean adding about 20lbs of muscle. Shoot for the moon, land among the et cetera.

The Secondary Goal

Fix faulty movement patterns, correct long-standing injuries (yes, I still have a dodgy back and shoulders).

The Plan - Training

Bodypart split, 6 days a week The routine will look something like this:

Chest & Triceps

-Pec Dec pre exhaust-Dumbell press-Low to high cable flyes-Decline cable press-push ups (might not bother with these depending on how many sets of the other things I've done)-Tricep Pushdowns-Overhead Cable Extensions

Some notes on the routine:-I realise chest and back days look a little long, but I've actually cut my rest time way down when I'm training and should be able to complete the workouts in a little over an hour. Also on back day, I am not doing many sets for most of the exercises so it'll be fine. There's about 20 sets each for chest and back which is reasonable, and adding 6 sets per day for arms shouldn't be too much of an inconvenience.-There's a lot of arm and shoulder work, because my arms and shoulders need the most work. Simple as that.-The weak point day is a stroke of genius, but will be an optional workout and may be missed if there's something more fun to do.-The sabbath is a rest day.

The Plan - Diet

I am going to be much more scientific than I have been in the past, even going so far as to weigh out portions (the horror!). It's going to be:

-180g of protein over 6 meals. However much cottage cheese or eggs I eat at the end of the day will depend on how much protein my dinner has and how much I need to eat in order to bring my total up to the 180g mark. If dinner is huge and I reach 180g before my pre-bed meal then I will still have a little cottage cheese or eggs but probably not more than 15g worth of protein.-Meals 2, 3 and 4 will be pre-prepared with grilled meats, fried veg (the constituency of which will depend on what I fancy, with things like onions, mushrooms and peppers being the obvious staples) and a carb source (most likely rice). They will be eaten out of tupperware, dosed heavily with hot sauce.-The tupperware meals will have a tablespoon of Red Palm Oil added to healthy them up a bit.-Fruit is only consumed pre and post workout.-Dinner is to be enjoyed, and will be whatever I want. This is not only to keep me sane but also to allow the mrs and I to have a nice evening meal together. Life is for living, after all, and there's more to food than just macro and micronutrients.

One last thing on diet: those of you that remember me from the many moons ago when I was active here will remember I was a big exponent of fasting and eating a huge meal or two in a day. Well, the new plan is the polar opposite of that. My thinking is that the tighter the control I have on the variables, the easier they will be to manipulate. Really what I'm doing here is eating in the traditional way a bodybuilder would.

General Notes

-My goal is lofty, however it's not so black and white. A LOT of the muscle I hope to gain will actually be regain, which will hopefully count for some fast growth. I have lost of lot of size and strength since summer last year so we'll see just how significant muscle memory really is. One blessing is that I have lost a significant amount of fat too, so my starting point is good.-I will supplement with fish oil, vitamin D, ZMA, glutamine, probiotics, inulin, digestive enzymes and phosphatidylserine.

So there we go. Didn't expect that post to be so long so congratulations if you made it to the end.

Any comments or anything just post them in this thread. I won't bother with a discussion thread.

Hey, good to see you back! I haven't been around much either, due to connectivity issues (not bad connection any more, but I have to pay by the MB!), so I'm glad I caught this today. I was just thinking about you the other day, wondering how you were doing. I'll read the post in the lounge before I ask any stupid questions. Good luck on the training.

_________________Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.--Francis Chan

Unhappy with that, so I reckon my 200lbs goal by the end of the year is pretty much doomed, so I'll aim for 190. If I can get to there and maintain my levels of bodyfat I'm at now it'll be pretty awesome.

considering it's supposed to be a hip extension machine, I really only feel it in my quads... Not sure if I'll keep this in tbh

Leg Curls

35k x 1245k x 1055k x 8

Front Squats

40k x 1050k x 840k x 10

felt a slight twinge in my back on the second set at 40k. Nothing set ending or anything but definitely something to be aware of. I dunno. I think I'll just keep the weight at 30k next week and try and get more reps. I think the problem was that as I fatigued I wasn't controlling the weight as much and was sort of dive-bombing the reps. Got to be conscious of that from now on.

Anyway the first leg workout of 2014 (seriously, I've been very slack indeed) could have been a lot worse. Should have trained abs too but meh. Maybe next time.

didn't push the boat out too much with the triceps work as they're still a little sore from Saturday. Mostly just got a good pump in them.

And we're done. Happy enough with the workout. Hopefully in a month or so my strength on the dumbell bench'll be more or less what it used to be. If memory serves, I was using 44k bells for 8 reps. Will be happy to get back to that.

I can see myself making good progress on these. Got the groove of the technique a little better now; gripping the handles a little further up allows for more of a stretch at the bottom of each rep which makes it a little spicier.

Prone Ys

3k x 155k x 123k x 15

man you feel like a pussy using 3k dumbells but ho hum.

Reverse Pec Dec

30k x 1235k x 1240k x 12

changed up my technique on this after seeing a demonstration by Shelby Starnes. Turns out my form wasn't good, but it is now, so that's ok.

Cable Curls

7.5k x 1210k x 107.5k x 12

just a smidge of biceps work to finish.

Done. Should've done another biceps exercise at the end but I couldn't be arsed. Not a bad workout, all in all.

Legs tomorrow. Dreading it. Back's been hurting since I tweaked it on front squats last week so I'm not sure how I'll structure tomorrow yet...

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